Senior Trip / Spring Break "No FP+ for You!"

[wookiebeck]

My son is going with a school group next month. He was sad about not being a runner for legacy FP. I told him that he is lucky to finally be staying on-site at All-Star. And we were looking forward to helping the class schedule the FP+.

Low and behold, the TA told us that the 'student passes' would not be able to be linked to MDE and thus could not schedule FP+ ahead of time. So that means hundreds of kids staying onsite have to play by the offsite rules.

They will get MB's and 4-day hoppers, but only day-of FP+. Does this sound right?

 

[Maggie'sMom]

Nope, doesn't sound right.

 

[Charleneluvsdisney]

Yes, that is correct. My son's trip is at the end of February and they were told the same thing.

They should be able to get FP+ at the kiosks in the parks though, just not able to schedule before they go.

 

[kay1864]

My son is going with a school group next month. He was sad about not being a runner for legacy FP. I told him that he is lucky to finally be staying on-site at All-Star. And we were looking forward to helping the class schedule the FP+.

Low and behold, the TA told us that the 'student passes' would not be able to be linked to MDE and thus could not schedule FP+ ahead of time. So that means hundreds of kids staying onsite have to play by the offsite rules.

They will get MB's and 4-day hoppers, but only day-of FP+. Does this sound right?

I would double-check with someone else instead of taking the TA's word. Or if there is a ticket number on the student passes, try adding it to an MDE.

Sounds like others have had the same issue. Still, you can help the class schedule FP+, ie show them slides of the kiosk screens so they all don't waste time in line. Or there might even be "Everest/Safari/Kali" groups, so several tickets can be entered at once.

 

[islandtimect]

Rules on Group room and tickets can be different than individual ticket rules. I don't know your specifics but it is definitely possible you have to wait to go to the kiosks.

 

[wookiebeck]

Thanks for the replies and knowledge. I love the DIS.

I figured the MDE would be easier for groups since you can link all your friends. But not this time.

 

[crostorfer]

Thanks for the replies and knowledge. I love the DIS.

I figured the MDE would be easier for groups since you can link all your friends. But not this time.

What week in March are they going? Just looking for a heads up so I can try to avoid a crowd of 400 17-18 year olds, LOL.

 

[subtchr]

I am a group tour director for bands and choirs. I had an orchestra group at WDW last week.

We stayed offsite, and FP+ worked really well for us. Admittedly, this was a slow-ish time of year, so there were not really any lines at the FP+ kiosks, so that probably helped.

The main reason I like FP+, at least how it stands now, is that with a group visit, our schedule is determined by performance times and other factors. So we often can not enter a park at RD. With legacy FP, we often could not get the most popular FPs, since by the time we arrived, they were gone for the day, or they were for a time after we were scheduled to leave the park. With FP+, that is not the case (so far). We didn't arrive at AK until 3:00 pm, and we still were able to get FP+ for EE and Safari.

Even if we had stayed onsite, our company policy is that we don't distribute our park passes until the day we arrive at the park, so it would not be possible to enter anything into MDE even if it was permitted by the system for group tickets.

For the person who mentioned avoiding a group of 400 teenagers, on any given day there are probably an average of 3-4 marching bands in one or another of the parks, especially around spring break time. They tend to tour the parks in small groups, so you would usually never know they are there, but trust me, they are!

I will be back with other groups in March, May, and June. I will be interested to see how well the system works with larger crowds. But so far I love it for our groups!

 

[subtchr]

I just noticed that the OP mentioned her son's group will have MBs. I haven't had a group onsite yet under the new system, but I believe one of my groups later this spring is staying at ASMu. I will be interested to hear how it goes with the MBs, compared to the RFID cards we have been using.

As the tour director, I have a list of all the cards for the group, so if a student loses one, we can go to GR and replace it. I suppose it would be the same with MB. (I know, it seems hard to lose a MB, but trust me, with 200 or more kids, several of them will lose them somehow over the course of a 4- or 5-day trip!)

 

[ashleymrush]

To the OP - thanks so much for this post. I've been wondering about this myself. I'm the head chaperone for our annual senior trip. This year's trip was cancelled due to lack of interest (which broke my heart) but next year we should be back up and running again. I was considering changing our offsite reservation to an onsite so that they can get FP+ ahead of time but now I know that there really isn't any point. I would love to stay onsite with the kids again but the price was too high and it's really hard to keep teenagers from going back to their rooms and doing 'who knows what' when the chaperones are out in the parks as well. It always worried me. So as weird as it sounds I'm happy to hear the kids won't really be missing out by staying offsite. I do think it is unfair for those who are onsite though. Maybe they will change it in the future.